The second time I went to see an opera at the Met, I fell asleep. I forgot what opera it was until this week. (It was La Bohème.) At the time, I really wanted to see it. I really wanted to be the kind of person that liked opera. But I didn’t really get it.
Fast forward seven years, and I’m suddenly obsessed with opera. It’s like how you shed your taste buds every few weeks, so you start liking things you wouldn’t expect. …I guess? I’m not sure how this happened. Regardless, over eight recent days I watched 15 operas (16 if you include both Don Giovanni productions) thanks in large part to a free seven-day trial of Met Opera on Demand. And now I’m here to rank them.
I know you probably don’t like opera, but maybe you’ll get new taste buds, too.
Here's my list, from least to most beloved (with spoilers galore) :
15. Bluebeard's Castle (Béla Bartók, 1918)
Production: Met Opera (Mariusz Trelinski, 2015)
Unless you want to know what a serial killer keeps behind the seven locked doors of his dark creepy mansion (surprise: lots of bloody things), skip this one-act opera. Conducted by Valery Gergiev, unabashed Putin loyalist.
14. Die Zauberflöte [The Magic Flute] (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1853)
Production: Met Opera (David Hockney, 1991)
Even with David Hockney's wacky set design, the janky-cute animal puppetry, and Kurt Moll's basso-profundo Sarastro, I was not into this. Mostly because I hated Manfred Hemm’s Papageno. What kept me watching was the Queen of the Night Aria, or “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" (“Hell's vengeance boils in my heart,” perhaps the most German song title ever) by Luciana Serra. One of many, many Met productions conducted by disgraced predator James Levine.
13. Akhnaten (Philip Glass, 2019)
Production: Met Opera (Phelim McDermott, 2019)
The steampunkish costumes and sloooow-motion movements against Glass's pulsing repetitions are impressive. Who knew juggling could be so serious? But I can’t actually sit and watch this. Like Philip Glass’s music, you either love it or you don’t. Conducted by Karen Kamensek.
12. La Rondine (Giacomo Puccini, 1917)
Production: Met Opera (Nicholas Joël, 2009)
I hadn't heard of La Rondine until a few days ago, and there’s a reason for that. The Art Deco backdrops were neat – minus the depictions of naked prepubescent-looking girls – but the bland courtesan plot and music were pretty shrug. I was disappointed that my homeboy Samuel Ramey was a cardboard-cutout Rambaldo. Angela Gheorghiu and Robert Alagna, real life lovers (who, fun fact, separated 9 months after this production) play heart-wrenched Magda and Ruggero. But meh. Marco Armiliato conducts.
11. La Bohème (Giacomo Puccini, 1896)
Production: Met Opera (Franco Zeffirelli, 2014)
I drank a lot of free wine before I saw this back in 2016, so I thought that was why I fell asleep – that didn’t help, but I think I’m just not a La Bohème person. Zeffirelli’s gritty scenes of boho creatives trying to get by sound like my jam, but this dragged for me. Vittorio Grigolo likes to play the struggling artist (see Tosca) and makes an endearing Rodolfo. (Too bad he’s creepy.) Conducted by Stefano Ranzani.
10. Der Fliegende Holländer (Wagner, 1843)
Production: Met Opera (François Girard, 2020)
I could’ve done without Senta (Anja Kampe) swirling around for the 11-minute overture. (Though Wagner would have approved, probably.) The shock of Daland's gargantuan ship and that stormy sky immediately after was gratifying. But is the Dutchman’s ship usually not there…? I had to look up the libretto to figure out what was happening. Another one conducted by Valery Gergiev – probably his last at the Met, since the West cut ties with him soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
9. L'Orfeo (Claudio Monteverdi, 1607)
Production: Gran Teatre del Liceu (Gilbert Deflo, 2003?)
Quick history lesson: L'Orfeo is the oldest surviving complete opera and epitomizes the musical transition from Renaissance to Baroque. This production is appropriately traditional and mythical, with spooky masks and simple, dreamy backgrounds. The director of this recording gives well-deserved screen-time to the orchestra and conductor Jordi Savall, who enters the orchestra pit with cape billowing like a 17th-century god.
8. Turandot (Giacomo Puccini, 1924)
Production: Met Opera (Franco Zeffirelli, 1987)
Zeffirelli went all out for this very stunning, very cringey opera. Plácido Domingo plays Calàf, who sucks (both on-screen and in life). But so does everyone – Ping, Pang, and Pong, the yellowface state ministers, are the worst, and I’m not a fan of Timur the blind dad and Liù the selfless slave, who are saccharine caricatures. Even the pronunciation of “Turandot” is annoying - whether you say that final "t" is your call? Still, it's a visual feast with music to match, and "Nessun dorma" is one of the best operatic songs of all time. Conducted by James Levine.
7. La Traviata (Giuseppe Verdi, 1853)
Production: Met Opera (Michael Mayer, 2022)
I was prepared to not like La Traviata, given its trite story - a courtesan, rich dude, forbidden love, death by TB - but I was charmed by Michael Mayer’s pretty sets and Nadine Sierra’s Violetta. (For you Simpsons geeks, Marge was vacuuming to “Sempre libera” in "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield.”)
6. Carmen (Georges Bizet, 1875)
Production: Met Opera (Richard Eyre, 2010)
Whether or not you know it, you’ve heard songs from Carmen – “Overture,” “Habanera,” “Toreador” – before. This production is very physical. Elīna Garanča is a captivating, leg-swinging Carmen, and Roberto Alagna plays a naive-dude-turned-abusive-stalker (Don Josè). Until I saw this production, I forgot that great opera singers must also be dedicated, full-body actors. I didn’t love Act I, and when Elīna Garanča isn't on stage I got restless; however, every scene with her and/or a tightly-tailored toreador is arresting. One of Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s earlier times conducting.
5. Rigoletto (Giuseppe Verdi, 1851)
Production: Met Opera (Michael Mayer, 2012)
Michael Mayer’s 1960’s Las Vegas production is a slick update of the original 16th-century party-hardy setting. Diana Damrau manages to be a sweet but not-annoying Gilda, Željko Lučić is as believable playing clownish Rigoletto as he is Tosca’s evil Scarpia, but I was really drawn to Stefan Kocán (Sparafucile), who seems to pop up in every other Met production. The delightfully misogynist aria “La donna è mobile” plays a more significant role than I realized. Conducted by Michele Mariotti.
4. Tosca (Giacomo Puccini, 1920)
Production: Met Opera (David McVicar, 2018)
Of all the operas I binged, this was my visual favorite. Sir David McVicar did the Il Trovatore and Agrippina productions I watched, so it’s no coincidence that these all landed in my top four. This opera is peak drama x tragedy; “E lucevan le stelle” will destroy you in 3 minutes. Sonya Yoncheva is a superb Tosca, as are Vittorio Grigolo (Cavaradossi) and Željko Lučić (Scarpia). Emmanuel Villaume conducts.
3. Il Trovatore (Giuseppe Verdi, 1853)
Production: Met Opera (David McVicar, 2011)
To me, Il Trovatore is a model operatic story: it’s about forbidden love, yes, but with intergenerational trauma, some twists, delayed death, and a witchy mama. Plus there’s the famous anvil chorus ("Vedi! Le fosche notturne spoglie"), which seems pretty random here but shirtless hunks be shirtless hunks. Sondra Radvanovsky and Marcelo Álvarez have easy chemistry as Leonora and Manrico, and I loved Dmitri Hvorostovsky (di Luna, the bad guy). Tim thought he looked like Adam Driver. Dolora Zajick rocks as old, tormented Azucena. Marco Armiliato conducts.
2. Agrippina (George Frideric Handel, 1709)
Production: Met Opera (David McVicar, 2020)
I recently became obsessed with Voi che udite il mio lamento and was desperate to watch this opera, which is based on how the real-life Agrippina plotted the demise of Claudius, her husband/Roman emperor, in order to get her son Nero on the throne. I was pissed that the Met only has this contemporary version – but, wow, what a fucking gem. Kate Lindsey owns this pants role as Nerone, inhaling pounds of cocaine and pelvic thrusting; and Joyce DiDonato is a flawless, better-than-I-could-ever-imagine Agrippina. It’s funny, brilliant, and 3.5 hours long but I barely noticed. If I weren’t so fiercely loyal to my top pick, this could have been my #1.
1. Don Giovanni (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1788)
Production: Met Opera (Franco Zeffirelli, 1990) & Festival D'Aix-en-Provence (Jean–François Sivadier, 2017)
Don Giovanni is considered to be the greatest opera ever composed, and I believe it. It has everything: comedy, murder, sex, redemption, otherworldliness, and the libertine actually gets his comeuppance. Samuel Ramey and Ferruccio Furlanetto are Don Giovanni and Leporello, respectively, and I freaking adore them. They’re an 18th-century buddy comedy in velvet and leather. The music is catchy and hilarious – I mean, an aria that lists the thousands of women your boss has slept with, by country? – and nothing in any opera I’ve watched comes close to “A cenar teco m’invitasti,” a song+scene I love so much that I've streamed just about every single version you can find on YouTube. James Levine conducts.
While Samuel and Ferruccio are my dudes, I did enjoy the modern, wildly bawdy Don Giovanni interpretation from Festival D’Aix-en-Provence, conducted by Jérémie Rohrer. But I didn’t care for the Met’s Don Giovanni (Ivo van Hove, 2023), which I started but couldn’t finish. An interesting reminder that, if I’d watched different productions of these 15 operas, my ranking and reviews here would be totally different.